1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is directed to controlling and managing personal information, and in particular, to managing personal information in an individual user's personal information space.
2. Description of the Related Art
People increasingly manage their personal information through electronic means, such as personal digital assistants, on-line contact and calendar applications and even wireless phones. Hence, a migration of contact, document, financial, and other personal information has been made away from paper calendars, address books and records toward electronic systems. Both the type and the quantity of personal information in electronic form are growing.
Personal Information Managers (PIMs) generally comprise software applications running on a processing device such as a computer and personal digital assistants (PDAs). PDA's are small, electronic devices of varying types, which store reminder, contact, task, notes, and text information as well as other types of files. In the desire to increase the manageability of personal information, PIMS and PDA's have merged with cellular telephones, PIMs have migrated into online contact managers and pocket personal computers have become more and more powerful.
Generally, software PIMs include products such as Microsoft Outlook, Interactive Commerce Corporation's ACT!, and other similar programs are designed to run on a computer. PDA devices include devices such as those using the Palm® or Microsoft Windows Pocket PC operating systems, as well as other, more basic contact and calendar devices. Each PDA generally includes calendar, contact, personal tasks, notes, documents, and other information, while more sophisticated devices allow a user to fax, send e-mails, and communicate from within the application over a physical or wireless network. Even advanced cellular phones carry enough memory and processing power to store contact information, surf the web, and provide text messaging. Along with the growth in the sophistication of these devices, the need to transfer information between them has grown significantly as well.
Online personal information managers make access to data from any networked terminal possible. Many Internet web portals also now provide file storage, contact and calendar services. For example, major service portals such as Yahoo!, Excite, Lycos, MSN and others provide on-line calendar and contact manager services via a web browser to registered users. This allows a user to log in to their own calendar and address book from any Internet-capable web browsing application since the user's individual data is stored on a host server maintained by the web portal provider. Each of these services includes a data store as well.
All such personal information operated on and stored by a user can be considered within that user's “personal information space.” In this context, a “personal information space” is a data store of information customized by, and on behalf of the user which contains both public data the user puts into their personal space, private events in the space, and other data objects such as text files or data files which belong to the user and are manipulated by the user. The personal information space is defined by the content which is specific to and controlled by an individual user, generally entered by or under the control of the individual user, and which includes “public” events and data, those generally known to others, and “private” events and data which are not intended to be shared with others. It should be recognized that each of the aforementioned criteria is not exclusive or required, but defines characteristics of the term “personal information space” as that term is used herein. In this context, such information includes electronic files such as databases, text files, word processing files, and other application specific files, as well as contact information in personal information managers, PDAs and cellular phones.
Once a personal information space is defined, the challenge becomes managing information in the space particularly between different devices. For example, if an individual keeps a calendar of information on a personal computer in his or her office using a particular personal information manager application, the individual would generally like to have the same information available in a cellular phone, hand-held organizer, and perhaps a home personal computer. The individual may additionally need some characterization of the information, such as what information is more relevant or important to have in a particular location, and which people the user interacts with regularly, and how the user interacts with them.
Mechanisms exist for moving data between a number of devices and keeping a user's personal information on those devices current between all the devices.
Co-pending application Ser. Nos. 09/490,550, 09/491,675 and 09/491,694 disclose a novel method and system for synchronization of personal information including that which is conventionally found in desktop applications, personal digital assistants, palm computers, and website calendar services, as well as any content in the personal information space including file systems, contact information and/or calendaring information. Such systems can keep information on different systems in sync, but no qualitative method for evaluating the importance of the information to a user is provided.
Hence, a system whereby a user can automate the process of determining the importance of personal information on one or more of the user's devices based on characteristics of the user's interactions with such information would be useful.